Defending the Christian faith and promoting its wisdom against the secular and religious challenges of our day.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Genocide, Moderate Islam and Western Silence

The gunman, with reported ties to al Qaeda, and suspected of killing seven
people, including three children at a Jewish school, has seemingly confessed to
the shootings. Understandably,

·Dalil Boubakeur at the main mosque in Paris told Europe 1 radio that no one should link the Toulouse events and the
Muslim religion, which is "99 percent peaceful, responsible, non-violent
and well-integrated into the country".

This assertion raises several questions:

Are "99
percent peaceful, responsible, non-violent?”

If
this is so, why are religious minorities in all Islamic nations either
persecuted and/or diminished by Shariah law?

If
Islam is a peaceful religion, why is the Islamic world so prone to
violence and coercive attempts to impose Shariah?

Why
aren’t there any examples of Islam coexisting as equals with religious
minorities?

Christians
are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a
rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm…In recent years the
violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in
Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to
South Asia and Oceania. In some countries
it is governments and their agents that have burned churches and
imprisoned parishioners. In others, rebel groups and vigilantes have taken
matters into their own hands, murdering Christians and driving them from
regions where their roots go back centuries.

But a
fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion
that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the
bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations
from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence
surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop.
Nothing less than the fate of Christianity—and ultimately of all religious
minorities—in the Islamic world is at stake.

As
Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious
Freedom, pointed out in an interview with Newsweek, Christian minorities
in many majority-Muslim nations have “lost the protection of their
societies.” This is especially so in countries with growing radical
Islamist (Salafist) movements. In those nations, vigilantes often feel
they can act with impunity—and government inaction often proves them
right. The old idea of the Ottoman Turks—that non-Muslims in Muslim
societies deserve protection (albeit as second-class citizens)—has all but
vanished from wide swaths of the Islamic world, and increasingly the
result is bloodshed and oppression.

As an example of what Christians are facing in Islamic territories,
the latest issue of World Magazine
(March 10) cites the 12 northern provinces of Nigeria, under Sharia law since
2000. Boko Haram, the terror organization, meaning “Western Education is Sinful,”
intends to drive Christians out of the north and to impose Sharia on all of Nigeria:

Christians
throughout the Sharia states in the north faced post-election [April 2011]
violence. In the Kaduna
state [alone], Muslims destroyed 409 churches and pover 2,000 homes,
killing 137. In Gombe state, they destroyed 39 churches and 74 homes,
killing 20. (54)

In a
Jan. 25 video on YouTube, Boko Haram leader Imam Abubakar Shekau took
responsibility for the Jan. 20 attacks and said: “I am not against anyone,
but if Allah asks me to kill someone, I will kill him and I will enjoy
killing him like I am killing a chicken”…A Boko Haram posting from late
last year says…nine…Christian denominations in the north, “must be bombed
and leveled.” It also cites eight pastors, most Muslim converts to
Christianity, as targets “to be eliminated.” (52)

In light of the fact that the 12 northern districts are
already under Sharia and Christians have been made to submit to Sharia, it is
hard to understand why the terror would continue. Already:

In
those 12 states authorities prohibit Christians from holding office,
discriminate against them in property and business activities, and subject
them to Islamic law. Some districts in Kano state have Christian majorities,
but district governments are run under the state’s Sharia system. That
makes Christians subject to the Islamic court system and requires students
to take Islamic courses.

Nevertheless, since the imposition of Sharia in 2000,

Over
13,000 mostly Christian Nigerians have been killed in religious-related
violence, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious
Freedom…”Boko Haram is not doing anything new,” said Peter Akinola, the
retired archbishop of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. “More than terror
attacks, this is part of an ongoing attempt to Islamize Nigeria.
This country began as a democracy, but now in my own country I cannot live
freely.” (52-53)

If world domination is the goal of Islam, perhaps we will soon
be saying the same in the West. Even now, those who are doing ministry among
the Muslims are facing intimidation and threats of violence. Consequently, if
there are peace-loving Muslims who believe in a world where all religions can
live at peace in equality, they need to speak up in a meaningful way. It is not
enough to merely say, “Well, these terrorists aren’t really Muslim,” especially
in light of the Islamic doctrine of “Taquiyya” which authorizes Muslims to lie to
the non-believer on behalf of Islam. (See www.koranqa.com, fatwa 59879, where
the Muslim can only have contempt for the non-believer). Therefore, we can’t
help wondering if the claim to be peace-loving is merely a ploy.

We have not seen where peace-loving Muslims confront the
extremists to insist that Sharia should allow religious freedom. Nor have we
seen the Mainstream Western Media

confront those committing the atrocities done in the name of
Islam. Mark Lipdo, director of the Stefanos Foundation, claims that,

“They
have misrepresented violence as a clash when it was an outright attack
from the Muslim minority.” Lipdo himself was on hand in 2010 when Muslim
gangs raided three predominantly Christian villages near Jos on March 7,
slaughtering hundreds of mostly women, children, and the elderly.

Lipdo claims that the Western media – they derived their
information from Muslim sources - has wrongly reported that the various attacks
were in reprisal for the killing of 150 Muslims. However, none of the media
outlets were “able to provide eyewitness accounts of the attacks that killed
150 Muslims.” Instead, Lipdo reports:

“We
were there when the whole conflict started. We saw the Muslim military
commander release people caught carrying out the attacks with their
weapons”…Local media reported police on the scene who did nothing to stop
the Muslim attackers.” (56)

One victim had commented to the Daily Champion, “As they were killing and burning our homes, they
were chanting, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ meaning ‘God is great.’” If this isn’t the real
Islam, then the moderates have to publicly reclaim their religion, especially
if we are to take them seriously. Likewise, the media, as well as the Western
nations, have a responsibility to bring genocide to light. However:

The
reporting slant shows up in the U.S. policy, as well. The 2011
report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom describes
“sectarian violence” in Nigeria driven by “religiously motivated actions”
without ever saying that the overwhelming number of deaths involve
Christians. (56)

If we are really concerned about peace and deeply troubled
by genocide, then we have to speak up and shed light on the evil. If we fail to
do this, then our silence speaks in favor of approval.